For decades Australian women have fought with universities to be heard on sexual assault. Fed up, student protesters gathered at Parliament House early on Friday to demand state and federal governments intervene.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The group, which included women, transgender and non-binary people from throughout Australia, carried mattresses and placards detailing 12 demands of their governments and universities.
Their requests included the establishment of a dedicated hotline for sexual assault survivors, that the federal government legislate a formal complaints and compliance mechanism for universities, and that respectful relationship and consent education be compulsory in primary and secondary schools.
Protest organiser Emma Henke described sexual assault as "almost epidemic" in university communities.
Data released by advocacy group End Rape on Campus earlier this year revealed more than 500 official complaints of sexual assault and harassment were made to universities in the past five years with 145 of those relating to rape.
"If you look at the rates of sexual violence among the community of people with disabilities, people of colour, even international students, the rates go even up which is showing us that people of marginalised identities experience these problems even to a higher degree," Ms Henke said.
Sexual assault survivor Freya, who attends an ACT university, said she had not reported her assault as she was "terrified" of the process after hearing what others had gone through.
She said she witnessed "pretty horrific" responses from university and accommodation management to reports of sexual misconduct in her role as a former residential accommodation women's officer.
"At one point I was unable to support a particularly vulnerable survivor because the toll on my mental health was so great and I called up my administration and they told me they would take over the support of this survivor," Freya said.
"They didn't make contact with her for 10 days … but in the interim period I later found out they'd met with the perpetrator to offer that person pastoral care and support after hours at 8pm at night even though they somehow couldn't find time in the day to support the survivor."
Freya said the burden of fighting sexual assault had too long fallen on student activists and survivors but said it was promising the Human Rights Commission had taken an interest.
"If we knew there was a serious disease that affected 30 per cent or more of the population, we would've done a lot more about it already," she said.
"I think the fact that people have been suffering in silence and a large proportion of the victims are women we have not taken this issue seriously enough."
End Rape on Campus ambassador Nina Funnell said Friday's protest was evidence sexual assault survivors had had enough.
"For too long women's voices have not been heard, in part because sexual assault has been treated as a private matter for women to privately manage," she said.
"Rather than universities taking ownership of their mandate to provide a safe education for students, they have left it to individual survivors to manage their trauma while utterly failing to reprimand or discipline those responsible.
"Survivors have had enough. Today they're collectively speaking with one voice and have come to the nation's capital to demand better."
The Australian Human Rights Commission will release its report on university sexual assaults on August 1.
